


My Bad

by Callisto



Series: Season 5 codas [10]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Episode Related, Episode: s05e12 Swap Meat, Gen, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-09
Updated: 2011-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-17 19:44:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callisto/pseuds/Callisto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“You’re right, Dean. It has been a while,” Sam says finally. “Too long. I...I didn’t think you wanted this.” The ‘anymore’ isn’t said, but they both hear it. Sam leans sideways until his bottle finds Dean’s. He keeps it there till Dean looks at him, and Dean’s heart catches at how nervous Sam appears. “So,” says Sam, taking a deep breath, “to you, me, and a beer or three.”</i></p><p><i>Dean makes his voice soft. “Absolutely.” </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	My Bad

**Author's Note:**

> _Dean: “So... Gary.”  
>  Gary: “Yeah, I know. My bad.”  
> Dean: “My bad? Kid, my bad ain’t gonna cut it.”  
> \- Swap Meat – 5.12_
> 
> Thanks to Ancasta for the beta.

Dean sneaks Bob Seger back up a notch or two as they head out of town. But the third time he snakes his hand out to the dial, he hears that familiar intake of breath to his right. He does it anyway, and sure enough, next is the tight-lipped, sing-song “De-ean”.

“Sammy, Sammy, Sammy...” He shakes his head. “So predictable, bro.”

“Oh, let me guess. Gary loved it, right?”

“All the way up to eleven, dude.” He cranks it slowly up, eyes on Sam’s face as he does so. He gets the wince and the eye-roll he’s looking for. And damn if The Silver Bullet Band don’t sound a whole lot better after that.

Which kind of makes his mind up about something. It’s dark, but not late. It’s pouring with rain, and as far as he’s concerned, they have no place to be right now. Sam keeps looking at his reflection in the glass, which okay, fair enough after having to go back to high school for a day. He also keeps flexing his fingers and rolling his shoulders, like he needs to feel the weight of all that muscle back on his bones again. Dean opens his mouth to have some fun about skinny seventeen-year-olds, but then sees a neon beer sign wrapped around a fake pair of antlers, so he takes a hard right instead.

“What are you...? Why’re we stopping?”

Dean turns off the engine and squeezes Sam’s knee. “Come on. Let’s go celebrate you being a Sasquatch again.”

The bar is just right. Not too busy, not too dead. Something by Aerosmith is playing and there are booths aplenty, as well as pool tables and a dart board. Dean thinks about a booth, but at the last second he steers Sam over to the bar and a couple of stools. It stings a little – especially after the unexpected ease he thought he’d enjoyed with his brother the previous night. But truth be told, he’s not entirely sure he wants to find out he and Sam really can’t sit across from each other anymore without a laptop or a gun collection between them.

Right on cue Sam scoops up the keys Dean has barely put down.

“Dude. What?” Dean grabs his sleeve.

“What _what_? Nothing. Just...if we’re going to sit here a while I’ll get the laptop.”

Dean yanks him back around. “Would it kill you to sit your ass down and have a drink with me for five freakin’ minutes? Jesus, Sam.”

“God. Fine. Why so dramatic, Dean?”

Great, now he has the bitch face to look at. Dean takes a deep breath and signals the barman for two beers. He should’ve known long before Gary walked out with a dubious blonde on his arm. Because a passion for cheeseburgers and D list witches aside, only Sam ever gets under his skin like this.

“Look, I want us to have a drink together. No laptop, no research, no friggin’ apocalypse. Just you, me, and a beer or three. When was the last time we did that, huh?”

Sam’s brow furrows as he actually appears to consider the question seriously. “God... Bobby’s birthday?”

“Exactly. And Bobby was there, so it doesn’t count.”

Sam’s face softens. “You remember how drunk he got?”

Dean remembers. “Yeah, calling that barmaid...what was her name? Lulu?”

“Kathleen.”

“Yeah, but he called her Lulu, right?”

“Yup. All night. We never did know why.”

It’s tiny but it’s something. A shared memory, a half-smile each, and maybe it’s not quite so difficult to do this.

A moment or two passes as their beers arrive and they each take long drinks. Dean can feel Sam’s gaze glancing off him. He holds his breath a little.

“You’re right, Dean. It has been a while,” Sam says finally. “Too long. I...I didn’t think you wanted this.” The ‘anymore’ isn’t said, but they both hear it. Sam leans sideways until his bottle finds Dean’s. He keeps it there till Dean looks at him, and Dean’s heart catches at how nervous Sam appears. “So,” says Sam, taking a deep breath, “to you, me, and a beer or three.”

Dean makes his voice soft. “Absolutely.” Dean clinks back and takes a long, long pull from his beer. When he’s done, he studies his brother for a second.

“What?” But there’s a half-laugh to the way Sam asks it this time. No bite or worn down patience, and Sam is actually starting to look like he belongs on a bar stool next to his big brother for the night.

Dean lifts his chin at the pool tables. “Ready to have your ass handed to you, chief?”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Such confidence. I am quaking here. Rack ’em up, loser. This will be sweet.”

“Sweet? Dude. You’re not seventeen anymore.”

“Just move your ass, old man.”

 

Four games later, they’re six beers in and trash-talking each other to distraction. Literally. Dean has tripped over Sam’s cue twice, and Sam has had Dean’s elbow in at least four of his shots. It’s two games apiece and Dean rather likes the symmetry of that, so he calls time out and they head back to the bar.

Silence settles in again, the pair of them sipping side by side, and Dean is just wondering if it’s going to stretch from comfortable to thin again, when he looks to his left and sees this weird smile on Sam’s face.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Sam’s eyebrows dip up. And he’s picking at the label of his bottle; all classic Sam-speak for _something_ , not nothing.

Dean is on the sixth beer he and his brother have managed to share in a bar without a laptop. So this once, he’s going for the something. He knocks Sam’s knee with his own.

“Come on. I’ll bite. What’s in that freakishly large head of yours?”

Sam looks up. “You liked him, didn’t you? Gary, I mean. You really liked him.”

“What? No. Guy was an idiot. He pissed his pants over a dead witch, for crying out loud.”

“Yeah, but he was easy to get along with, I bet.”

“Well, he did buy me cheeseburgers.”

“I buy you cheeseburgers!”

“Yeah, but you bitch about them. And refuse to eat them with me.”

“Because they’re bad for you, Dean!”

Dean shakes his head. Sam versus Cheeseburger has to be one of the true constants of his life. Even more so since he keeled over in that manwitch’s apartment and gave Sam all the ammunition he would ever need. He rolls the bottle in his hand, thinks about how he’d believed Gary when he’d tried to be nice, and how much that had wound up hurting when the truth had dawned. And it really shouldn’t have – especially since Dean is always the one running ten miles whenever Sam tries to pull that emo-confessional shit. Doesn’t matter. It’s aching like a tooth and six beers are going to make him say it.

“He told me I was a good guy.” Dean takes a drink, resolutely not looking in Sam’s direction. “Looked me straight in the eye and said I was a good guy and that he had had an awesome day.” He glances to his left and shrugs. “’Course, a few hours later he pointed a shotgun at me, but what can I say? At the time, coming from you, it was nice to hear.”

“Dean..."

“It’s okay, Sam. Forget it. You asked, is all.”

Sam nods and goes quiet. He picks at the label again, tearing it off in thin strips and Dean thinks about calling it quits and leaving while they’re kind of still ahead. He’s patting his pockets down for the fifty he knows is tucked away somewhere and misses what Sam mutters to his beer bottle.

“You say something, Sam?”

Sam lifts his chin. “You are.”

Dean stops patting his pockets. “I am what?”

“A good guy. You. You are a good guy, and you should know that I think you are. And...and I’m sorry if you don’t. I mean, you are not the most encouraging guy to open up to at times. But God, of course I think you’re a good guy, Dean.”

Dean just nods, letting the moment stretch. Right until Sam starts to fidget on his stool.

“That hurt much?” Dean deadpans.

Sam exhales a shaky breath. “Dude, you have no idea.”

“Oh, I think I do. This emo crap is exhausting. What say we put it away and get back to the serious business of the evening?”

Then they’re clinking bottle necks together, Sam is half-smiling, and Dean gets to feel that glow in the pit of his stomach twice. And to keep it for more than an hour this time.

So he turns around on his stool, rests his elbows back on the bar, and surveys the scene. Sam, however, goes to stand. Dean sighs. “Sammy, relax. I got a fifty for the tab. We are not going to have to use your pitiful pool skills. Thank God one of us is awesome at this.”

Sam heads for the bathroom, oblivious to Dean’s wit, it seems.

When Sam comes back, his face is pale.

“You okay?” Dean asks.

Sam opens his mouth, and then glances around, as if someone might overhear. He leans in close, licks his lips nervously, and Dean wonders for one wild second if Gary is back in the house. “Dean, there are these...uh...weird marks on me.”

Dean jerks back, eyebrow raised. “Where?”

Sam leans in even further. “On my ass,” he hisses, clearly mortified. “What the hell did that little shit get up to when he was me?”

Dean cannot believe he’s forgotten all about this. He clears his throat, and scrubs his hand down his face. He knows he’s got about five seconds to decide how to play this and hopefully keep Sam from hyperventilating.

Decision made, he fixes a smile on his face. “Well, Sam, that was kind of the light bulb moment, if you will. So you should be happy, really. Because you ditching me to walk out of a bar on the arm of a six foot dominatrix finally got those alarm bells ringing nice and loud.”

“Wait. Arm of a what?”

“Yeah, I checked with the barman after you guys left. Just to be sure, because it seemed, at the time, like the right older brother thing to do. Apparently, she’s well known for it. Likes to zero in on guys who are uh, built – his words, not mine – and who are a little slow on the uptake.” Sam opens his mouth, Dean holds out his hand to forestall him. “Again, his words, not mine.”

“God,” says Sam dramatically, thunking his head down onto his forearms at the bar. “You mean to tell me I got...”

“Spanked? Whipped?”

“Dean!”

Now he is openly chuckling. He can’t help it. “What? That’s like on my Top Ten, dude. And you got to do it first. Which...wow, beyond unfair. Especially since you don’t even remember.”

That gets Sam’s head up. “You’re sick, Dean. You know? Really sick.”

“Hey, I’m not the one with marks all over his ass.”

Sam groans and thunks his head down on his forearms again, and Dean belatedly realizes that no amount of joking around is actually going to lighten this for Sam. Dude has control issues like nobody’s business. So Dean rests his right hand on the back of Sam’s neck – something he hasn’t done in a ridiculously long time – and leans in close, because Sam really does need to hear from a big brother right about now. “Listen to me. Don’t you let this gnaw at you. It was a couple of hours max, Sam. The rest of the time you were with me, 24/7, so no worrying about what you did. No demon walked you around, okay? It was just an idiot kid who somehow managed to pop his cherry with a bored housewife. Seriously, that’s it, Sammy.”

Sam’s head comes up off his arms and Dean eases back. He still keeps his hand on the back of Sam’s neck, though. He gives Sam a moment and then spreads his other arm wide.

“Hey, you want me to go back and kick Gary’s ass? I’m there. Right now. A little ‘come to Jesus’ Winchester style is fine by me.”

Sam’s smile is slow and a little watery, but inwardly Dean relaxes. A final pat and he takes his right hand back.

“Nah, I’m good. Kid’s life is punishment enough, believe me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Forget it.” Sam exhales a long breath and runs his hand back through his hair. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem. Offering to beat people up for my little brother is what I live for.”

Sam shakes his head, calls him a jerk, and steals the last of his beer. So Dean figures enough is enough, and it’s time to get the show back on the road.

First things first, though.

He takes hold of Sam’s arm and drags him off the stool. “Come on, princess,” he says, steering him back to the pool tables. “Let’s get you and your tender ass over to the pool table, and maybe I can whip it twice in twenty-four hours.”

Dean ducks the smack to the back of his head, but is not quite quick enough to avoid Sam’s foot in his ass.

Man, he hasn’t had this much fun with his brother in ages.

******


End file.
